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Monday, July 28, 2014

A little over 10 years ago, when I was a student in Arizona, I attended an Art of Living workshop. At that time I didn’t think I got much out of it. At this time I don’t remember most of it so I am not sure what I really got out of it. but there is exactly one thing I remember. One of the exercises required us to pair up with another person and switch partners every so often, sort of like speed dating. We were supposed to sit facing each other and hold hands and look into the other person’s eyes. I forget what the point of this exercise was. It was kind of awkward to begin with. Sitting in front of a stranger, or worse yet a non-stranger, holding their hands and looking into their eyes is not the most natural situation. But this is pretty much the only thing I remember because I learnt a very important lesson that day. After we were told what the exercise was and before we started this exercise I was screaming in my head “Gosh…please don’t pair me with that guy…anyone but that one.” Honestly, I don’t know why I felt that way. I guess I just assumed I won’t enjoy the exercise with this particular person. I know that sounds totally mean. I it think it is kind of mean. Hopefully I have matured since then. Anyway. About 15 seconds into the exercise I decided to focus on doing what was being asked of us and focus on that person’s eyes. And all I could see was a very very pure innocent soul. I know that sounds overly preachy, but that is absolutely true. I then switched partners at least a few more times and experienced the exact same thing with everyone. No matter who it was, stranger, acquaintance, make, female, person I liked, person I thought I didn’t like, anyone – looking into their eyes and focusing on nothing else for about a minute completely changed my outlook on people. It gave me a new perspective to look at people.

Try this next time. It seriously works. 99% of the times.

The point is, I truly think eyes are gateway into people’s soul. It is the most honest organ in our body. Eyes can say what our actions and words cannot. Everyone has a story and your eyes tell yours.

My Positivity

It was Siddharth's birthday on July 26, Saturday. It was such a wonderful weekend that involved friends, sleep-over, Paranormal Activity IV (yes, we are into that), cake, park, fabulous brunch, date night (thanks to kids' day care for hosting Parent's Survival Night), movie, waterfront, beach, sand, water. Life is good. Really really good.

Monday, July 21, 2014

Last two weeks have been super awesome two weeks in our house hold. Last few days kind of feel like a dream that I wish never ended. It happens when you are surrounded by people who love so so so very dearly. My sister visited me in Seattle and was joined by her husband shortly after. While I missed my nieces a lot, I was beyond ecstatic to have my sister with me! We did what sisters do together – we shopped, we ate, we hiked, we fought, we argued, we laughed, we roamed around aimlessly.

We then spent the last two weeks at my brother’s place in California. Siddharth loves vacations in which there is absolutely zero agenda. I personally need agenda on vacations. But that is more practical when it is just the two of us. Even then I have learnt to let go of my pro-agenda attitude lately, because that’s what having two babies can do to you. No agenda ever makes sense. You make agenda, kids break agenda. A simple task of leaving the house to go out to restaurant seems like a goliathic task that scares me away from a 100 feet radius. Anyway, that is beside the point. The point is that I am beginning to like no agenda vacations and it makes sense when there are more than two adults making decisions.

So my dream vacation commenced when the trouble makers (my brother & his much better half, my sister and her dear hubs, and us) got together under one roof. We did everything that we would want to do on a vacation – eat, drink, play, relax, and more relax. What made it truly beautiful was taking one day at a time and deciding what to do depending on what we felt like on that day.

Ooh, and btw – kids enjoyed this vacation because they got so much time with Happy Mama and Masi (my sister), of walking in the parks, and of having aimless fun! And much to everyone’s surprise, my angelic daughter is not so angelic anymore. She pushes Rehan all the time. Now Rehan run in opposite direction the minute he sees Sammy approaching him. So I keep telling Sammy to not push because it gives Oouuii. But once Rehan has been pushed enough number of times, he bites. Eeks. While I try my level best to not interfere when the kids are fighting so they can resolve their own differences, I have to discourage the behavior of pushing and biting. Anyway, moral of the story is, my kids are growing up very fast. They are not in the anything-everything-goes-in-the-name-of-cute stage anymore. They are growing up!

Oh, well.

It was the kind of vacation my system badly needed. It involved barbecue, corn, sun, water, rain, hail, conversations, music, sitting on the beach, jet-skiing, kayaking, perfect weather, perfect breeze, being in water, just enough booze, good food and family. It was like heaven on earth. The best part was I cracked the code of my fear when it comes to jet-skiing. So here is the thing. I have always preferred sitting behind on a jetski because I have always been so scared of driving it. So this time, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to drive the jetski. I realized I was in control of how fast/slow I wanted to go and exactly when to speed up versus slow down. It was so much easier and so much more fun. I can’t wait for my next jetski experience now!

I am having withdrawal symptoms now and am missing being close to my family. So I will spend this time looking at some 1000+ pictures we took over the last two weeks.